


Touch Before Heart

by WarriorOmen



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angry Sex, Bathing, Fluff, Getting Together, Historical, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Poetic Language, Pre-Movie, Romance, Smut, flowery language, historical setting, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:42:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26996896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarriorOmen/pseuds/WarriorOmen
Summary: The first moment they’re able to have a bath, they resolutely do not look at each other. Picking opposite ends of the small stream bed, backs turned to one another. A strange show of both trust and distrust; their backs were exposed, but it was up to their tentative mutual agreement to not partake in the opportunity to stab each other for it.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 35
Kudos: 311





	Touch Before Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I set out purely to write some sensual bathing and it spiraled into this.

The first moment they’re able to have a bath, they resolutely do not look at each other. Picking opposite ends of the small stream bed, backs turned to one another. A strange show of both trust and distrust; their backs were exposed, but it was up to their tentative mutual agreement to not partake in the opportunity to stab each other for it.

Neither do, but both think it.

Yusuf’s hair takes multiple dunks under water to even _begin_ to dislodge the amount of grime, blood and sweat that has caked itself into his thick long curls. Grumbling to himself as his fingers continually catch themselves on knots and kinks, wishing he had one of his combs to go through it.

His beard has fared no better, Yusuf contemplates taking his knife and shearing the entire thing off, just to feel the relief of the grit out of it. But it’d be a more monumental task at present than he’s willing to deal with.

He resigns himself to endless scrubbing, combing, and picking with his fingers and a sharp-edged rock he tries to use for assistance.

Across the water, Nicolò is fairing only slightly better. He’s soaking his ruined clothes in the shallowest part across from his own knees, though he wonders if there’s anything remotely salvageable within them. While his _skin_ may have healed, his attire most certainly has not.

There’s a giant slash in the stomach and chest area of his tunic, the stiff trousers molted with ragged cuts at the thigh, the calf. His belts got a tear in the top and the tunic’s neckline is soaked from a slash to the throat, bloodied and dark.

It’ll have to do.

His skin is a terrible contrast to the carnage of his clothes. Pale, unmarred, unbruised.

It doesn’t feel fair. It doesn’t feel right.

With the blood off his fingers, he looks fresher and more reborn than he has in years. Even the sunburn has long since faded, leaving only pale, healthy skin in its wake.

Nicolò makes a fist, curses, and tilts his head to the bright sky.

_What now?_

They keep things separate. Mostly.

Meals are shared due to the sheer scarcity of food. They eat in silence. Sleeping is done in shifts, as is bathing. Using the same unspoken agreement to keep watch while the other attends to his business.

Neither of them knows precisely how or why it happens.

The atmosphere is strange. They’re grown men, in an uncertain world with an uncertain fate and too many questions to work through properly. Stumbling through conversations through pieces of what languages they both understand with some capability, rife with emotions that make no sense and have no guidance or direction.

They can’t go home.

There’s nobody else for miles.

Who starts is a question neither can answer. Maybe it was Yusuf, shifting uncomfortably by the fire while Nicolò attempted to sleep but only succeeded in counting the near-endless stars partially hidden by clouds. Or maybe Nicolò had gotten bored with that and started a frustrated finger-walking down his own chest, using ancient distractions to lure himself to sleep.

It’s not pretty, even then.

They both end up on their knees, having migrated to the same side of the fire. Staring into nothing sensible. Brown meeting grey, Yusuf’s hands fisting Nicolò’s tunic, Nicolò’s molding to Yusuf’s waist, dragging them together.

Not so much different from fighting, the way it pans out. Grappling, tugging, lips mashing in bites and tugs, too brutal and uncoordinated to be considered really _kissing._ Everything pulsing, hot, wet and angry.

Nicolò ends up on his back, not without a fight. Grasping and tugging. He knows Yusuf to be heavy-has felt that before. But the heaviness now is still somehow different, something warmer, firmer. More direct.

There’s no blade to come, no slash to the throat nor stab to the chest. Only the grips of fingers, the bites of lips.

Yusuf’s curls twist in Nicolò’s not entirely gentle grasp. Nicolò’s lips bleed from where Yusuf’s teeth have scored them, only to heal seconds later.

They speak in their own tongues, only barely understandable to each other for the odd word.

 _“You bring no fear to me, Nicolò.”_ Yusuf half-chokes, half-snarls. Not even sure if he’s entirely in belief of that himself. It only seems the most appropriate thing to say, rolling and grunting, the heat from the man beneath him no less furious, no less appalled and confused.

Nicolò caught the word ‘no’ and ‘fear’ and his name, only really guessing to how the sentence panned out, arching into him, the desperate seizing motion of his hips a brutal tide to the screaming of his mind.

 _“Fear..”_ Nicolò gasps, unable to hold on, unable to even stop if he tried, desperate bucking into Yusuf as everything broke and screamed. His body endlessly tensing, riding out for what seemed like a small eternity.

The sentence hangs unfinished.

He’s only dimly aware Yusuf followed him down, the biting tone replaced with shaking, bitten-back grunting, like his cries are something precious and not to be shared.

When they finally extricate themselves, it’s with mutual looks of consideration, determination and stout decision making.

 _We won’t discuss this._ Seems a shared statement.

_For now._

Like times before, they clean facing away from one another. The water much colder in the dark of the night. The air charged, electric, and its only sheer exhaustion that brings them sleep.

\--

Anger, Nicolò has been coming to realize, is a fleeting emotion.

Secondary, almost. It’s hot and fiery, or cold and sharp. It festers or bursts, stews and explodes.

But it doesn’t last.

Guilt lasts. Confusion lasts. But there’s only so long you can be angry at your circumstances. Angry at the God you’ve spent your life beneath the foot of, only to be left with a fate that shouldn’t be possible, eternally tied to a man you killed through that bond.

No book spoke of it.

No tome, no script, no legend told of a life like this.

Death was death. Death meant you left the mortal plane and ascended to something better, greater.

Or otherwise.

It didn’t mean permanent limbo. Eternal stasis.

“You’ll wear that tunic to bits.” Nicolò must later ask himself when Yusuf’s voice stopped alarming him. When the infliction of it was less a fright and more a comfort.

He glances down to his tunic, frowning. It’s the newer one he’d picked up back in their last town stop, and it’s being beaten to clean by a rock held in Nicolò’s opposite hand. Slamming over and over into the ground.

“I am thinking.” He says, because it’s true is it not?

“Well do be more careful with that _thinking.”_

He’s gone back to his own duties at the camel before Nicolò can question it. Grumbling and returning to his tunic.

It has a nice little weak spot in the front now, the fabric thin from the rock strikes.

Yusuf’s eyes tend to linger on it whenever he has the chance, amusement dancing in the brown gaze.

It should annoy Nicolò, the smugness of it.

Instead, it starts a small spark in his heart, something wholly unlike any of their encounters, their moments before.

\--

Things _shift_ after that. The permanent charge in the air between them carries a distant, vibrating current. One that both seem afraid of being burnt by should they choose to explore it.

Yusuf’s hands fascinate Nicolò. They create and devastate in equal measure. The first time he caught him sketching, he stopped what he was doing to crawl up beside him, surprised when Yusuf did not ask for him to leave, continuing the works of the dark markings against the thick paper.

“I did not know you could draw.”

“Well, I never told you.” Yusuf admits, the smile fond, continuing the slow movement about the paper. Nicolò finds that he cannot recognize the scene being sketched out, “Where is that?”

Yusuf’s silent a long moment.

“My home, as I recall it.”

Nicolò feels guilty immediately, the hands stop moving, Yusuf’s fingers releasing the tool he’d been using to grasp at Nicolò’s own hand. Dragging a slow gasp from his lips.

“You miss yours?”

Does he?

“Yes…and..no, I do not know, Yusuf.”

His feelings of home are a complex thing, these days.

“I question everything.”

Yusuf hums, they stare out into the distance together.

“As do I.”

\--

For the first time since the mystery of them began, Yusuf can truly and fully appreciate the figure that Nicolò cuts with his long bow, arched above a precipice. He’s only in practice, keeping motivated and strong.

They try to train in trousers only, to save the wear on their tunics. The suns high and bright, but Nicolò’s covered his head with the cloth to keep it from his vision, steady and resolute, ready to aim into the distance, the target Yusuf had set up some long stretch away.

Yusuf has felt that body beneath his hands more than once since their first angry fireside encounter. Though he’s loath to call it something beyond mutual release. He’s aware of those broad shoulders beneath his fingers, the way his muscles flex and jolt when he’s touched a certain way. How the stomach now pulled taut can shudder if Yusuf’s fingers skirt across the spot near his hip bone _just so._

He’s utterly lost to the moment. Mesmerized, as the arrow finally releases from the sharp pull, singing across the air and finding it’s target with a focus Yusuf could almost cheer for. Pointed, direct and without a single miss to it.

“You have a real skillset, for that.” He comments, before Nicolò has a chance to reload, coming nearer to him. “Patience is a strong suit of yours, as is focus.”

Nicolò seems to flush, and Yusuf wonders if he’d blame it on the beating sun. “I find some level of peace with it. I prefer to be still when I can. It is not always so easy. In youth I could never seem to settle. I was always trying to find something to occupy myself. My mind buzzed continually.”

“You find it meditative?”

Nicolò seems unfamiliar to the word, brow scrunching. “Perhaps?”

Yusuf extends a hand, “I’ll explain later. For now, would you care to teach me?”

His companion seems surprised, “Me? You have such skill with your scimitar.”

“One can never have enough skills, Nicolò, you can use a sword yourself, after all.”

“And you a dagger.”

“Which only furthers my point, no?”

Nicolò’s gaze is softening, following a distracted trail across Yusuf’s own shirtless chest.

“I would be glad to teach you.”

He hands him the bow and begins the process of guiding him through the motions. Yusuf is studious and considers himself such, but he somewhat underestimated how it would feel to have Nicolò’s arms about his waist, across his own, skirting his wrists, his veins, helping him into the necessary positions. Solid and flat to his own back.

Sheer will power keeps the arrow steady, Nicolò’s heavy and secure to his back, breath hot and sharp in his ear. The sweetest and most maddening cadence tickling his ear and lighting up his spine.

“Yusuf, let go now.”

He does, feeling his breath leave him in a rush in unison with the arrow. He misses the target terribly, but for the serene, congratulating laughter in his ear, he finds he cannot care much for it.

\--

Bathing, for whatever reason, is still a task they do not share in.

The anger has faded, and with it some of the confusion. They sleep closer together by the fire when not sleeping in shifts. Meals, work, all is shared with open enjoyment and mutual pleasure in each others company.

Like their other encounters, with hasty touches and quick movements. With open mouths and seeking lips, there’s a bridge they’ve yet to been able to cross. Something hovering, hanging, a roadblock that’s beginning to frustrate them both.

No touch, no kiss, no whispered sigh or choked off gasp seems to break the moment.

No mutual training, no shared story. No equal hunt nor trip to towns seems to take away that one defining _block._

They’re moving together by the fire, Nicolò letting Yusuf’s soft cock fall from his mouth, curling in on himself with a soft sigh that Yusuf cannot quite interpret. Yusuf shuffles away, righting himself, thinking maybe he could say something, thinking maybe there’s some puzzle piece they’ve left behind. Something to find and discover, something to give it sense.

“Night, Yusuf.” Is the only sound that breaks the night, Nicolò rolling over to situate himself to sleep.

“Goodnight, Nicolò.”

Yusuf stares at the stars for a long while that night, unaware his companions doing the same. Both equally frustrated, chilled, and unable to break the spell.

\--

Death, Yusuf thinks, likes to mock them.

They’ve been on edge since the previous fireside incident, as Yusuf is taking to thinking of it in his head. The peaceful serenity and confusing stasis returning more to the old simmer they were more familiar with in the times passed.

How much time has passed is uncertain, the two working to a mutual goal of finding the source of their shared dreams. The one thing beyond themselves they cannot come to understand.

Landscapes shift, but little else does.

Countries still war.

People still fight.

And even without that, there’s trouble lurking in corners sometimes least expected.

Street brawling, of all things, is so pitiful in Yusuf’s eyes. So utterly ridiculous to get into posturing squabbles because someone maybe had too much to drink. Or maybe someone disliked the way they were spoken to at dinner.

They come from the moment bloodied and cranky, and neither had been in a companionable mood to begin with. The heavy tension now making sparks between them, shuffling out to find a place to camp in a method as commonplace to them as travel.

Nicolò is quietly fuming at his left, hissing between clenched teeth as his arm works a slow heal. Yusuf stops walking all together when Nicolò curses, jerking, biting back a whimper as the elbow and forearm try to knit.

“Nicolò?”

“I’m fine, Yusuf,” Distant and huddled, the way a wounded animal afraid of touch might be. “It is just slow.”

There’s a crack, another hiss and Yusuf turns fully, taking Nicolò’s wrist before the other man can jerk back, blood cakes the flesh where his tunic has been ripped and soaked, Yusuf’s eyes widening as the bone tries to work its way back into the skin.

He curses in unison with Nicolò, both holding fast and steady as the thing finally rights itself, Nicolò letting out a slow, shaken breath of relief.

“Are you alright?” Yusuf asks, both to break the silence and mend the irritating gap they’ve created for themselves.

“Better. Thank you.”

Yusuf wants to scream.

He wants to grab Nicolò, shake him until he can do nothing but give him answers.

_Why do you drive me to the brink of madness?_

_Why do I know your touch, but not your heart?_

_Why do you tempt me, consume me?_

_What does it mean?_

_Why are we here?_

_Why!?_

It is an unfair desire; he’s hardly given the man any more clarity.

“Come.”

There is little to do from here, they need to get away. Find camp, get safe.

The water is freezing.

Yusuf shudders and shakes within it, bending at the knee and crouching to retain even some warmth. It’s a futile effort. The best he can hope for is to bathe fast and get back to their fire before his entire skin turns to ice.

He nearly leaps at the hand to his back, even though he knows it is only Nicolò, concerned for his shaking.

“Yusuf?” The question hangs, “Are you alright?”

He finds it hard to respond. There’s something hilariously ironic to it. Sharing each other so many times as they have but keeping that blockage of intimacy there, as if there’s no truer desperation or desire to it. As if they’re _doing each other some favour._ As if Yusuf does not feel Nicolò clawing his way into his heart, his soul. Like his very bones and blood know the man.

“Yusuf?”

He turns, fast enough that Nicolò immediately drops his hand. Looking guilty for his own concern. Like he has broken some nonsensical, mutual agreement between them.

“I know your touch,” Yusuf says, “And yet I know nothing of it at all.”

Nicolò inhales, ducking his head, a common thing to do when he doesn’t want Yusuf to see him thinking, or feeling. He’s seen it so many times before. Even when they’re as close as they possibly can be. Even when he’s deep in Nicolò’s mouth, his hand. Like he’s afraid if he see’s him he’ll never get back up again.

“Nicolò, look at me, please.”

He seems to say, _I cannot._ Seems to say, _I’m terrified of what you’ll see._

Or, he tries, but that old stubbornness Yusuf knows so well and has become so fond of wins out against whatever war is inside Nicolò’s head, dragging his bright grey gaze up and up, finding his with a defiant set of his jaw and a thudding in his heart Yusuf can practically hear.

“Why do you ask such things of me?” Nicolò asks. Steady, sure. “You, you stand here, like this, skin pulled tight from the cold of this very water, and you ask me things I have no answer to. We cannot possibly continue like this. I cannot keep myself resigned to a fate where I know of you, but I do not _have_ you.”

He’s not trembling, Yusuf can see that, but he flinches when Yusuf reaches out. A hand to the back of his neck, under that long brown hair, past where it sticks to the skin from the water, damp.

Nicolò shivers, tries to stop it from being so, and cannot. He never drops Yusuf’s gaze. Never lets his eyes go astray, even as Yusuf’s other hand draws to his collarbone, to his chest, a soft glide across the muscles there.

When he finds the spot on Nicolò’s stomach he knows draws him to shivering, Nicolò finally drops his gaze, own hand molding to Yusuf’s hip, all hissing lips and digging fingers.

“Why are we fighting?” Yusuf asks, his voice sounding far away to his own ears, despite never being more present. “What do we have left but each other?”

Nicolò barks, a breathless, helpless sound.

“As if I know.”

“Do you not?”

“No! You know well I have no more answers than you, Yusuf. That if I were to look God in the eyes should there be eyes to such a being, I would know of _nothing._ I can scream in my prayers until I am made hoarse, and I will perhaps never know. I am a world of the unknown. I have spent thirty years with some ideology I barely understand, some idea, some _concept_ I know nothing of. Only to be secured in this endless, never breaking fate. Never to know a thing!”

Now he’s shaking, gasping, Yusuf unable to do much but hold fast to him, hold the shuddering man as he trembles and near-screams.

“You have a panic to your eyes, Nicolò. Please, stop fighting.” He’s not sure if his tone is a beg or a plea, “I know no more than you, it is truth, but what good comes of fighting, of asking, of demanding, when we have one knowledge we are both aware of?”

“Aware of.” Nicolò’s voice trails the edge of hopeful. “Are you not as desperate as I?”

“Am I not?” Yusuf asks, “I have my anger. I have my sorrow. I have my own questions, concerns, considerations. At some point, screaming turns pointless, Nicolò.”

Nicolò sags, immediately, instantly, heavy against Yusuf’s willing, waiting chest.

“I know of nothing,” He says, again, almost uselessly. “Utterly nothing. I have no answers, I have no capability to find them. I have these dreams, and you. I have you. How, why, I know not, but do I? Do I have you, Yusuf?”

Yusuf wants to answer instantly. Wants to shout it. _Of course, you have me, fool! Of course, have I not been here this entire time?_

But that would be unfair. He realizes. Because up until perhaps seconds ago, Yusuf was not sure either.

“Aye, Nicolò, aye, you have I.” Finding the same neck he once slashed, strong against his fingers, a swallowing sending a shudder through Yusuf as they both work to lift Nicolò’s head, and when his lips find Nicolò’s, they’re cold and near blue, frozen and imperfect.

They heat quickly beneath his own, warming steadily with every press, soft, wet, the deep moan a beacon to Yusuf’s ears when it shudders through Nicolò’s chest, drags him in, brings him close.

Yusuf only brings himself away when the shudder turns uncomfortable, when Nicolò’s cheeks pink from the true cold of the water, forehead to forehead, Yusuf encourages him, a hand to his wrist.

“The fire,” He says, “This will no do at all.”

\--

“You are very strong.” Nicolò says, voice wistful and serene, when they’ve migrated from the water, Yusuf laid out flat on his back on the bedroll, stretched out beneath Nicolò, openly staring and enjoying the press of fingers to his neck, his chest, through soft hair and solid skin. Nicolò’s touch is gentle, the gentlest that Yusuf’s felt so far, and there’s something thrilling about him looking, about finally being _seen._

“As are you.” He points out, “Those bows, those swords, they are quite heavy.”

Nicolò’s head drops, finding the line of his breastbone, experimenting with a tongue flick to the flesh of it, across bone and skin, making Yusuf shudder. Encouraged, Nicolò creates a dragging sensation, working downward, something far more enticing than when he’d simply open his mouth and take his cock.

Now, Yusuf can feel how he takes his time. How he’s making sure to enjoy each touch, each sensation. How his breath skirts the hair in the juncture of his hip and pelvis. The way his fingers settle at his thigh, continue down, like he’s creating a picture in his mind and needs every detail.

“I like looking at you.” Nicolò breathes, “I was too afraid, before.”

Yusuf’s fingers, needing something to do, have been toying with the strands of Nicolò’s hair while he creates his downward, explorative pathway. “To look at me, or to _see_ me?”

“To see you. To look at such beauty and strength and consider how unworthy I was of it. To hear your voice by the fire, speaking of a world I scarcely know, of your life. When you show me the stars and teach me your language. When you recite from poems I had never heard. How it carries through the air and warms my heart.”

He lets his hand move away from Nicolò’s hair, to find his cheek, to touch the stubble across his jawline, “Unworthy or undeserving?”

“Both, perhaps. I killed you, after all.”

“I killed _you.”_

“We killed each other, but I have become enraptured, enamoured, taken. I have felt a tide so strong it seeks to bury me. To tear me asunder and drown me.”

“Are you drowning now?”

Nicolò lifts his head, encouraging Yusuf to pull him up, until they are face to face, until they can find their kiss, drags of lips, pushes of tongue, hands that cradle, that stroke, Nicolò moaning softly when they find themselves aligned, cocks hot and heavy against one another.

“I drown willingly.”

Yusuf looks up, it is not as if he has far to go. They have the oil nearby, and there’s a dual question when they stare at each other, unwilling to break the spell. Nicolò finds the bottle first, it’s sticky on his fingers, which he stares at for so long, slick and glossy that Yusuf has to bite his jaw to get his attention again.

“Nicolò?”

“Sorry.” Rousing himself, Yusuf shifting to get his leg open, braced along their sides, “You are distracting.”

“ _I’m distracting?”_ Shocked into a laugh, Nicolò grinning down at him. And this, this is _so much better._ It is so much nicer to hear Nicolò laughing like this. To not be staring up at him with questions or avoiding his gaze entirely.

“Sorry,” He says, again, and this time he’s more determined, encouraging Yusuf to shift more.

The first press doesn’t take him by surprise so much as it delights him. It has been a while since Yusuf felt _that,_ and he pants heavily, steady. Surprising Nicolò with the intensity of it.

“Good? Too much?”

“Good.” Yusuf promises, “Good, so good,” Giving a slow roll of his hips, further encouragement. “Keep going.”

It’s unhurried, the passion sweet, serene, Yusuf delights in being able to touch, to feel. To let himself bask in Nicolò’s hands, his grasp, to draw himself in, to feel the warmth and press, to let his moans break into a free share when the press of more fingers inside becomes too much to handle, to bear. Needing everything at once and never wanting it to end.

“I can hear you.” Nicolò says, “I could never before, you never let me.”

Yusuf’s fingers find the discarded oil, waiting, becoming as slick as Nicolò’s own when he finds his cock, a slow drag to coat him, encourage him, muttering nonsense and kisses into his mouth and jaw.

“You were not the only one who was afraid, Nicolò.” His voice a little sharper, a little more wrecked, letting his hand release him, tongue gliding across Nicolò’s bottom lip, shifting backwards, arching himself up, every bone and vein demanding for Nicolò to get closer, to get _in._

Nicolò hesitates, again, even as he removes his fingers, even as he hovers just above him. Trying to ask, trying to pause. Like he’s doubting himself all at once.

And that, quite simply, will not do.

Yusuf sighs, takes Nicolò by the hip and rolls them over, careful to mind Nicolò’s hair so near the fire as they are, hovering above him, relishing a little in the shocked gasp he gets for his troubles.

A gasp that turns guttural when Yusuf angles himself just right and sinks down, needing to roll his stubborn hips twice before Nicolò can finally breach, getting the message loud and clear, arching his back and scrambling to find purchase at Yusuf’s hips with his fingers, helping him down.

“Yusuf” He pants, gasping, loud and near breaking. Yusuf feeling all too full and overwhelmed and _so right_ all at once. Everything is hot, tight, and he’s barely aware that the cry flowing in the space between them is his own.

Yusuf’s hands find Nicolò’s stomach, staring down at him, wondering now which one of them was drowning, Nicolò staring back up at him helplessly. Both so lost in the moment they can’t move, can barely _breathe._

Nicolò breaks first, arching up to find Yusuf’s hair, to drag him into a kiss, wet and uncoordinated, the movement forcing Yusuf’s hips to shift and bounce, dragging long, low moans from them both. Chest shuddering together. Nicolò’s fingers spasm across his hips, around Yusuf’s rear when they grip, flex and coax.

He settles himself, puts enough space between them that he can lift, come back down, and find purchase again. Nicolò shaking himself from their shared daze to join him, to draw himself up, because if he does not somehow get even closer, he feels he may die.

His teeth find a spot around Yusuf’s neck, near the jugular, dragging across it while Yusuf undulates above him, against him. Everything feels so deep, tense, _hot._

Nicolò meets him each time, finds security in the way Yusuf’s downward motions rock into his upwards thrusts, neither stop themselves from moaning, from grunting, trading messy kisses that are more meeting lips and dragging tongues than anything with coordination or finesse. So desperate to be close.

There’s static in the air and buzzing in their ears. Yusuf feels tears pricking the corners of his eyes, desperate movements becoming sloppier, hastier, groaning helplessly when Nicolò’s newly slickened fingers finally find his cock, neglected and swollen against their stomachs, spasming and clenching around Nicolò when he finally breaks.

Nicolò stills within him, riding out Yusuf’s release in a slow daze, only really brought back by an encouraging hand in his hair, head dragging into Yusuf’s chest, needing only a couple more hasty, mindless thrusts before he follows him down, pulsing deep and hot within Yusuf, gasping into his shoulder blade. Yusuf’s hand a comforting, steady weight around his back, moaning softly through it.

They lay together in a useless heap until the stickiness becomes unbearable for them both, Yusuf making displeased noises when Nicolò rolls them over, gently slipping out, soothing Yusuf’s whine with his kiss.

“Sorry.” He’s so truthful in the apology that Yusuf finds he cannot help but laugh, trailing his fingers across his chest, down his back, Nicolò shivering delightfully when his fingers trail down his spine, still sensitive.

“You are forgiven.”

“Thank you,” He says, sincerely, shifting to sit himself up, find one of their cloths and let it fall into their water pot, sitting it on the flames for a long moment until it is warm enough to use without burning skin.

Yusuf shivers in pleasure as the warm cloth drags across his skin, slides into the flesh there. Nicolò so careful with him, so gentle. Mindful of the thick, coiled hair, not wanting to tug or snag it.

When he’s satisfied with that, Yusuf takes the cloth from him, Nicolò bucking weakly into his touch when Yusuf wraps it around his soft cock, cleaning any residue and stickiness from it, charmed by the soft, helpless panting he gets for it.

“You cannot be ready again.” He teases.

He’s not, not really. He remains soft in Yusuf’s grip, Yusuf huffs in surprise when Nicolò drops down to his chest, heavy and solid, surprising him.

“Tease.”

“I can be.” He admits, “You’ll see.”

**Author's Note:**

> As you can see, this one ran away from me a bit. I think about early days Joe and Nicky a LOT. 
> 
> I've also become very fond of the bowman Nicky headcanon. And have made some use of it.
> 
> Thank you for reading~! As always you can find me on [Tumblr](https://coffeebeannate.tumblr.com/)


End file.
